Day 4 - Outing trip 10/09/11

Today we had our first outing in China; we went sightseeing in a historical site and a museum. The historical site is The Temple of Marquis Wu (Wu Hou Temple); it is a temple to worship Zhuge Liang a renowned minister and military strategist for Emperor Liu Bei of the Shu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period in China. I learned many new knowledge of the Chinese history through our tour guide. The temple was named Wu Hou because Zhuge Liang was granted the title of “Wuxiang Hou” (Marquis Wuxiang) in his lifetime. The temple also contains numerous statues to Emperor Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang and other officials of the Shu Kingdom. Some of those historical figures are made famous in movies and books; one of these movies is “ChiBi” (Red Cilff). We were leaded through the temple in 3 hours. After visiting the temple, we went to JinLi Street right beside the temple, as explained by the guide; JinLi Old Street is one of the oldest and busiest streets in the history of Xishu. The Street features many unique culture of ChenDu. We tasted the flavours of old Chengdu by seeing the age-old street, official residences, folk residences, teahouses, inns, wine bars, stages and handiwork; we even got to get a taste of authentic Chengdu flavours by trying local snacks and specialties (Too salty!! LOL).

The next stop of the day was Huan Hua Xi Gong Yuan ( HuanHuaXi Park ), we took bus no.82 a public bus to the park. The public buses in China were actually better then what I expected. We (Malin & I) even chatted with a friendly uncle we met on the bus. He told us that his daughter was a student in Nanyang poly back in Singapore. Our conversation ended after 6 stops, we alighted and was briefed on when and where to gather. We were given a choice to go to the park or the SiChuan Museum. We (Group TC11) choose the park. While walking to the park, an unexpected rain forced us to change our course. We went to the museum instead. The museum contain many artefacts, this artefacts includes paintings, porcelain, bronze and clay art pieces. There is this one particular art piece that interests me; it is a painting of a famous scholar TangBoHu. I was interested in his work because he is one of the four most famous scholar of JiangNan (Jian Nan Si Da Cai Zi ).

After the visit, we took the coach and came back to campus. During the ride, Joel, Malin, Daryl and I played poker cards. We played throughout the journey and we had fun. Back at the campus, we (TC11) alighted near ShangYeJie and decided to have our dinner there. The restaurant we had dinner in is a Muslim stall, the food was acceptable but it was a little too salty & oily. After dinner Joel and i headed to Malin, Grace & Ying Ying’s dorm and chatted. We went back to our dorm at 12+ only to found out that the entrance door was locked. We rang the bell multiple times before the management lady came to the door. She told us that there is a curfew and the door will be locked at 11. That’s all for the day and I’m glad that I still can still write this and not be denied entrance to our dorm.

Cheers,

Jerry Neo.

Day 3 – Start of lessons. 09/09/11

 After breakfast, my morning was spent looking for my class room.  Malin, Erwin, Grace and I were left behind at the canteen by our oip group. We had to roam around the campus looking for our classmates as we do not have the phones with us (we are sharing sim cards). 20mins into searching we were lucky to saw a volunteering student from China which we know. We asked him to help us contact our classmate Ying Ying and finally knew where they were. We went to class and had lesson.

This was the first day of study and we were already late, I was really mad at my classmates for not waiting and confronted them about it and told them that we should stick together.

The module is on AC circuits and we covered a lot in a day, I hope I could remember what Madam Tan taught. During the lesson we were also given cables to connect to the internet back at the dorm, I was really happy to get to finally use the internet. The lesson ended at 4pm and we had the rest of the day free to ourselves. Erwin had previously bought a basketball and suggested to play at the basketball court near our dorm. The guys had some quality class bonding time playing while the girl were seating by the side chatting. Half way into the match I left together with Malin to cycle around the school hoping to find the library and the running tracks. We wanted to know where we would be spending most of our time at. We cycled around but didn’t found what we were looking for but instead we found a shop selling bubble tea. The bubble tea was insanely delicious and was very cheap. Malin and i then slacked at the shop and enjoyed our drinks.

In the evening, our Tc11 group gathered together and went to the super market outside the school again. We bought ingredients for our dinner. The ingredient includes prawns, meat balls, squid balls, broccoli, eggs and fish balls. Back at our rooms, our dinners were served after we cooked our instant noodles and ingredients using the rice cookers we bought yesterday. It’s 1.05am and I have not bath yet, time to go.

Cheers,

Jerry Neo.

Day 2 – Gun fire. 08/09/11

This is a day that I will never forget; I believe somebody died in front of me. Before I get into the exciting finale of today I will briefly go through the activities that we did.

In the morning, we (the whole OIP group) participated in the welcoming ceremony hosted by UESTC for their first year international students. The ceremony was held at the old campus of the school, we had to take a shutter bus from the new campus to reach there. The ceremony ended with us taking a massive group photo with all the teachers, students and guests of the ceremony. After that, we headed back to the new campus and were free for the whole day. The student volunteers here then brought us to a telephone shop within the campus to purchase a local sim card. With the card purchased, we could contact one another if we were to be lost and decided to explore the campus and the surrounding area. We (Joel, Nicolas, both Daryl(s), Malin, Grace, Kian kuan, Erwin, Ying ying & Iryshad. All from TC11.) rented bicycles to travel around.

At 5pm with our transports ready, we set out of the campus toward the super market just out of the school to purchase the daily necessities we needed. We were told by student volunteer Huang Long that the super market there have more varieties of stuffs as compared to the student super market in campus. At the market the eleven of us stick together in a group and gathered all the stuffs we needed and by then it already was 8.40pm. The lot of us agreed to venture further away from the school to have our meals. We left the super mart and spotted street stalls right next to it. We had our meals there. The food was quite tasty but was too salty to our likings.

After the meal, while we were leaving, Malin and I decided to get some other food from another stall, the rest of them had to wait for us. While waiting for our food (Here comes the trilling part!), the loud sound of gun fire suddenly came from behind, it was a total chaos everybody started running away from the sound of the gun fire. I instinctively grabbed Malin’s hand and ran in the direction opposing from the source of the sound. In the mess our group got separated, the ones with me were Joel, Grace, Malin and Ying Ying. After getting away to a safe distance we stopped and recounted what just happened, I was worried if any of us got hit. There were a total of six shots fired. We stood and waited for a while until everything got under control. I told my group to stay put and wait while I walked toward the area of incident to look for our friends, they followed behind. I was relieved to saw them unhurt. We regrouped and left the place as quickly as possible. While we were leaving, I saw a man lying on the ground surrounded by a crowd. I believe nobody could possibly survive after being shot six times. Swiftly but cautiously we retrieved our bicycles parked outside of the market and headed back.

The group decided it was best to inform the teachers in charge. We informed the teachers and went back to our dorm. Back here at the dorm we discussed of the incident and can’t help but to believe that luck was by our side. If Malin and I did not stop to buy something, we would be in the path of the gun fire, and things could turn ugly. Today was a once in a lifetime experience for me and that’s it for today.

Signing off, (Ain’t gonna cheer today.)

Jerry Neo